A Rubric That Makes Brochure Projects Easy

Brochures can be a project to show understanding of content or a presentation of research. Here we have a lesson to make the brochure and how to assess it using a rubric is included.

Planning Stage of a Brochure

Brochures are a versatile project that can be used in a variety of classroom, such as language arts, social studies, science, math, health, drama, etc. If students can fold a piece of paper in thirds and concisely write their information on it with art, they can make a brochure. It can be completed on the computer or without the aid of the computer. Elementary students can make them as well as high school students.

Materials Needed: Have the following available: paper, colored pencils, markers, photos, artwork, a computer, color printer and access to the Internet. Students can make the brochure without a computer, too. It can all be completed by hand or partially completed by hand and computer.

Students Brainstorm and Plan Brochure

The following are directions for students to make a brochure.

Step 1: Decide on a purpose and a specific topic. Most brochures are made to inform the reader about the topic. However, if the brochure is about a country, the student needs to decide if it will be a travel brochure, a brochure about historical sites, a brochure about water ways, a brochure about fine dining, etc.

Students may need to do some research to complete the brochure. They should list their resources on the bottom of one panel.

Step 2: Make a draft of the six panels. There are three panels on each side of the paper. It can be folded many ways, but the six panels need to be planned out on a piece of notebook paper.

Front Panel: This should have the title, name of the student, and basic information about the topic. A picture, clip art or small piece of artwork about the topic is a nice addition.

Other Five Panels: Display information with subtitles, pictures, clip art, and designs.

Students should decide what main information they want to display and tell about their topics. For example, if students are making a travel brochure about a country, one panel could be about the beaches in the country. If there are many beaches, students will need to choose the most important ones to them. A picture is always a nice addition.

Note: Many younger students want to place too much text or too many pictures on each panel. They key is to have no more than three sub-topics per panel. One or two is usually the best. Also, students need to work on writing concisely so that there is some white space (area without text or pictures) on each panel.

Constructing the Brochure

Step 3: Once the brochure is planned, student can begin working on their final product. If students are making the brochure on the computer, they can use Microsoft Word software. The paper can be set up on "landscape" and each side of the paper can be split into three panels by making three columns on each page.

Students can insert clip art, photos and scanned artwork. This will take time to complete. The teacher will need to schedule the computer lab or assign students to construct the brochure as homework.

If students are not using the computer, they need to neatly write their information on each panel and glue photos or clip art to the brochure.

Assessing the Brochure with a Rubric

The brochure can be assessed using a rubric. Again, key criteria could be accuracy, neatness, creativity and colorful.

Example Brochure Rubric

Level 4

Accuracy: All information is correct and all of the sources are listed

Neatness: All writing is tidy, photos and artwork are precisely placed, and all sections are orderly

Creativity: The brochure as a whole is interesting, engaging, imaginative, and original

Colorful: The brochure is eye catching and vibrant and/or coordinated colors are used

Level 3

Accuracy: Most of the information is correct and most of the sources are listed

Neatness: Most of the writing is tidy, photos and artwork are mostly placed carefully, and most of the sections are orderly

Creativity: Most of the brochure is interesting, engaging, imaginative, and original

Colorful: Most of the brochure is eye catching and bright colors and/or mostly coordinated colors are used

Level 2

Accuracy: Some of the information is correct and some of the sources are listed

Neatness: Some of the writing is tidy, photos and artwork are somewhat placed carefully, and some of the sections are orderly

Creativity: Some of the brochure is interesting, engaging, imaginative, and original

Colorful: Some of the brochure is eye catching and average and/or some mismatched colors are used

Level 1

Accuracy: Very little of the information is correct and none of the sources are listed

Neatness: Very little of the writing is tidy, photos and artwork are placed poorly, and the sections are disorderly

Creativity: Very little of the brochure is interesting, engaging, imaginative, and original

Colorful: Very little of the brochure is eye catching and dull and/or mismatched colors are used

This is just one example of a rubric. There are many on this free website.